


let's destroy a room with this love

by acertainlady



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Nicole Haught is a service top with zero (0) complaints, Protective Wynonna Earp, Waverly Earp is a power bottom who likes to plan, alternating first person POV, but not smut really, feat some wynaught brotp, it's Wayhaught so there will be sex, smut adjacent perhaps?, they love each other a lot and get real poetic about it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:00:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29316732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acertainlady/pseuds/acertainlady
Summary: In the four months between Bulshar's resurrection and the attack at Pussy Willows, Nicole and Waverly have to rebuild their relationship. There's a lot they still don't know about each other, and a lot they still don't know about themselves, but they know nothing can keep them apart.ORAn fluffy/angsty Wayhaught story set between the end of season two and the start of season three, where they cuddle in bed and bare their souls until they have to put on clothes to help Wynonna through the ubiquitous "demon hunting" stage of grief.
Relationships: Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 8
Kudos: 97





	1. pardon my life this time, i swear off future crimes

**Author's Note:**

> There's really no explanation for this story other than I got my top surgery and watched a lot of Wynonna Earp in the hospital to calm me down, and now I have t-rex arms for six weeks so I'm taking advantage to do a lot of writing. I hope you enjoy the fruits of my painkiller brain.

_Nicole's POV_

It’s the first extended moment of quiet we’ve had since I woke up in the hospital—or, well, as “quiet” as our lives can ever get. We’ve spent most the last couple days apart, me trying to take care of some things at the station and keep things running while Nedley recovered from his own variety of Widow torture, while Waverly was on twenty-four-seven Wynonna Watch, since we could only imagine how she’d handle the grief of her daughter’s departure.

Tonight, though, we have time to spend together. After I drag Wynonna’s passed-out body from the couch to her bed, and Waverly sets out water on the nightstand for her, we retreat upstairs to Waverly’s room, where she pushes me gently down onto the couch and drapes her perfect body across my lap, looping her perfect arms around my neck.

“So,” she begins, smiling up at me. I smile back, curling one arm under her thighs and the other low on her back, cradling her, helping to support her weight and keep her as close as the position allows. “We’re alone. Together.”

“Finally.”

“What do you think we should do?” she asks, suggestively, but I raise my eyebrow.

Yeah, I probably shoulda known that she’d try to avoid this part.

“I think we should talk.”

She winces, and her posture shrinks a little, but thankfully, she doesn’t pull away. I don’t know if I could stand it if she pulled away from me.

“Do we have to?”

“We don’t have to do it right now, but we do have to talk at some point. Waves, I want this to work between us. I want it to be real.”

“I want that too.”

“Then we need to be open and honest with each other. There’s a lot of stuff I want to apologize for, and explain to you, and also, there’s a couple things I kinda hope you’ll explain to me.”

Waverly sighs, and pouts, and it’s adorable and pathetic and it scares me how much that small, banal gesture makes me want to kiss her till I suffocate.

“So, Sorry Party time?”

Kissing her temple, I once again offer her an out, because I’m soft and useless when it comes to this magnificent woman. “Like I said, doesn’t have to be now, but it does hafta happen.”

“No, no. Let’s talk. I wanna talk,” she declares, her voice getting slightly more confident and assertive until she looks down, surveying our current position on the couch and adding, tentatively, “Should I, um…?”

And God, I don’t want her to move, unless it’s to get closer, but at the same time, I wouldn’t blame her if she were too angry with me to let me hold her.

“If you want,” I murmur, trying to keep the sadness out of my voice and mostly, but not totally, succeeding. “But I wouldn’t mind getting to hold you, while we talk. I always wanna hold you…so long as you’re okay with it.”

“I’m very okay with that,” she smiles, reaching up to comb her fingers through my hair. “Where do you want to start?”

And the words just burst out of me, like a floodgate releasing or like Wynonna entering a room.

“Baby, I’m so sorry I hid those DNA results from you. I had no right—I told you I’d be there for you however you wanted, and then I made choices for you and that was horrible and I am so, so sorry.”

Waverly’s expression is steely throughout my apology, just drinking in my desperate and sincere words, but obviously, still needing something more. “Why did you open them?”

I duck my head remorsefully. “I don’t want to make excuses.”

“I’m not asking for an excuse; I’m asking for an explanation.”

Her tone makes me flinch, a bit, but I rise to her request. She’s owed whatever she wants, whatever will help her hurt less. If she asked me to cut off my arm and beat myself to death with it, I’d do it. As long as it eased her suffering, I’d do anything.

“I was afraid of seeing you hurt,” I confess in a heavy, grave whisper, overwhelmed by the irony of my fuck-up. “I didn’t want you to be hurt, and I thought if I—I thought I could make it hurt less, but the second I opened it I knew I did the wrong thing, and then I was so ashamed and angry with myself that I was even more afraid because I knew I’d hurt you, and it all just sort of…spiraled from there.”

Waverly doesn’t speak, just sits there, ponders for a second, and words just keep falling out of me, like if I keep talking, somehow, I’ll eventually say the right thing, the thing that will make her understand, make _me_ understand, why I did this awful thing to her, the one thing she implicitly trusted me to never do.

“I wasn’t trying to control you, Waverly. I would never. I love that you’re a strong, independent badass who makes your own decisions and doesn’t need anybody to protect you, ever, but…also the idea of you ever being sad or hurt about anything, ever, makes me physically ill, which is stupid and unrealistic, I know, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling it. Just like I knew that it was stupid and unrealistic of me to think if I knew before you, I could prepare you better, I could help you better, when all I really should have done is just be there for you however you needed me and have I mentioned I’m so, so sorry?”

My pulse is as frantic as my stumbling explanations, and my beautiful angel moves her hand from my hair to my chest, inhaling sharply as she undoubtedly feels my heart thumping behind my rib cage. She bites her lip and those flawless hazel eyes look deep into mine, as if reading my soul.

“Is that why you didn’t tell me you were married? Because you didn’t want me to be sad or hurt?”

Her question isn’t harsh, or accusatory, and yet it cuts me deep. I feel like I’ve been ripped apart and exposed as nothing but a sentient abyss of shame and error, and yet she’s looking at me with tender curiosity, with mercy, with _love_ , even—it breaks me further, and I have to look away, because I don’t deserve her, I don’t deserve her compassion, not when I hurt her and lie to her and betray her.

So I avert my eyes, chuckling bitterly as I try to piece together any adequate apology for my monumental omission.

“No. No, I didn’t tell you about that because…I’m selfish. And I thought if you knew about—look, marrying Shae was the dumbest, most impulsive thing I’ve ever done. I’d finally met someone who I thought…saw me, and understood me, and still wanted me, anyway. It was adrenaline and stupidity and I put more thought into what I ate for breakfast that morning than I did into agreeing to marry her, and then it fizzled out as quickly as it started and she went back to Edmonton and I got a job here in Purgatory and honestly, the only reason we never got divorced is because we were both so busy and barely ever remembered we were married, until I met you and I wanted—”

I cut myself off just in time, taking a breath to regroup after narrowly avoiding a potentially disastrous revelation. Instead, I settle for:

“Until I met you and realized it wasn’t fair to you. So about three months ago, I called her for the first time in two years and asked her for a divorce.”

Waverly shakes her head slightly, her shoulders sinking. “Why didn’t you just tell me all that?”

“I didn’t want you to think I’m some reckless dipshit who falls in love at every corner. I didn’t want you to hear about this crazy whirlwind I got swept up in and think that what you and I have means any less. And I didn’t know how to explain that Shae and I are married, technically, but we haven’t been together for years. I didn’t know how to explain what my life looked like before, or how to explain why I hadn’t explained before, without making you think I was hiding it because you were the other woman, or something.”

And my jaw tenses at the inadvertent wording, and I close my eyes to push away images of Waverly’s lips on Rosita’s, and it makes me so, _so_ angry, because I let that happen. I fucked up and I hurt her and I made her seek comfort in someone else, because I had lost myself the right to comfort her, had lost myself the privilege of healing her. I hurt her, and I pushed her into the arms of someone else.

 _God_ , the idea of my Waverly in Rosita’s arms. The idea of someone else’s hands on her, someone else’s lips—I don’t own Waverly, I know that. I would never dream of trying to own her, or treat her like a commodity, or like she’s worth a certain number of goats, or like if I did x, y, and z things, then I’d earned the right to her. I know she isn’t mine, she belongs to nobody but herself, but nevertheless, I can’t stop the basest part of my brain from taking over my every thought process at the very inkling that someone else had touched her in ways only I’m supposed to be allowed to.

And, of course, I hate myself for that, too. I hate myself for driving her into someone else’s touch, and I hate myself for how much I hate the idea that someone else touched her.

I married a near-stranger in Vegas—did you really expect me to be as emotionally stable as I project myself to be?

While I’m stuck in my internal strife and wormhole of self-hatred, Waverly apparently decides it’s her turn to host the Sorry Party, and she moves her hand up from my chest to cup my jaw, guiding my face until I’m forced to make eye contact with her.

Her eyes are swimming with enough sorrow that even if I were still mad at her for kissing Rosita, I’d instantly forgive her.

“Kissing Rosita is the worst thing I’ve ever done, and I’m _so_ sorry.”

I snort skeptically at her exaggeration, challenging, “The worst thing you’ve ever done?”

“Everything else, everything I did to keep you from dying…I don’t regret any of that, not for a single second,” Waverly contends, without hesitation. “At first I wished I hadn’t done it, I wished I’d waited for Wynonna, but…if I had to do it again, I’d do the same damn thing. You’re too important to me, and since in the end, I didn’t actually disappear my sister forever, I’m feeling a lot less guilty over the whole Iron Witch thing. But…not about the kissing Rosita thing.”

Tears start to blur my vision, but I blink them away before they have a chance to fall.

“Do you _promise_ me it was just a kiss?”

“Yes,” she vows, beseeching and penitent. “It was like, ten seconds, at most, and then I pulled away and I hated myself for it and—”

“Where were her hands?”

The question comes suddenly, raggedly, so much so that I surprise myself with it, but it all but knocks the wind out of Waverly. She stills for a moment, her lip quivering, and it’s hard to hold my ground, but I need to know. I need to know if Rosita got to put her baby-snatching revenant hands on my best baby.

“What?”

“Did she get to touch you?”

Waverly breaks, allowing her eyes to fill up with tears as she holds my gaze steadfastly. “For a few seconds, she put one hand on my knee, underneath the water. Her other hand was on her glass the whole time.”

“And your hands?”

“I…I touched her cheek. Just my fingertips, brushing against her skin, and then I immediately snapped out of it and came to my senses and I told her I’m with you and we decided to leave.”

I swallow audibly, my throat feeling tight and dry to an almost painful degree. Everything hurts, all of a sudden, and I try to move my head, to look anywhere but at my girlfriend’s stupidly perfect face, but the small yet mighty hand on my jaw is relentless. With no other recourse, I close my eyes so as not to submit to her beauty.

“I probably deserved it.”

Her breath hitches, and she sounds almost offended when she breathes out, “Excuse me?”

“It’s my fault,” I choke, shaking my head subtly, my eyes still glued shut. “I fucked up, I lied to you, I hurt you, I drove you away. Of course you’d go make out with a hot revenant.”

“Stop that,” my compassionate, sweet girl implores, caressing my cheekbone with her thumb. I realize only as she wipes them away that a few stray tears have leaked from between my eyelids. “I don’t want her. I didn’t even want her then, not really, I just…I was angry, and confused, and questioning every single thing about myself and my life, and—I made a mistake. I was reckless, and impulsive, like you were with Shae, except I was childish and hurtful and there’s no excuse. But I don’t want her, Nicole. I don’t want anyone but you. I don’t think I’ve _ever_ wanted anyone the way I want you.”

While the words aren’t exactly the same, the sentiment is. I know what she’s trying to do—she’s reiterating my message, my hospital bed declaration, when I was about to go under and afraid I might never wake up. I needed her to know she’s my everything—I always need her to know that, but I usually didn’t say it in so many words. But if those had been my last seconds of awareness, I needed to use them wisely, and the wisest way I could think to spend them was to commit my undying devotion to the love of my fucking life.

So while she still struggles to tell me in so many words that she loves me, I know she does. I’ve always known, and frankly, at this point, I don’t care if she never says the words out loud; her actions are far more meaningful, to me.

I nuzzle my face into the crook of her neck, breathing her in, pulling her body even closer to mine.

“You did it just to hurt me?” I whisper brokenly, and there’s a tacit addendum to it, the next step on the flow chart which reads: _because if so, it worked._

And Waverly must pick up on it, must hear my silent expression, because she grips me tighter.

“I don’t know why I did it. Maybe it was just to hurt you, I don’t know. It was stupid and mean and I—”

“You can’t do that to me,” I say through gritted teeth, swallowing in hopes of relieving my still arid throat. “You can’t— _we_ can’t. We can’t just hurt each other because we feel hurt.”

“I know.”

When she talks, her lips brush my temple, and it sends an involuntary warmth through my whole body. It must have a similar effect on her, because she weaves her fingers into the hair on the nape of my neck, pressing our chests ever-closer together until I can feel her heart beat against mine, I can feel our lungs expand and contract in sync, and I wonder if it’s always been this way, if our heartbeats were always in time with each other, long before we ever met. I wonder if our autonomic nervous systems knew years before we did that we were made for each other, had been practicing, training for the day we finally came together, for the first time our chests pressed together.

Because that’s the moment I knew I was made for her, that she’s the only one for me. My heart knows it, my brain knows it, my whole body knows it.

It also knows this:

“I’m so sorry, Waverly.”

“I’m sorry, too,” she murmurs into my hair, inhaling it deeply, exhaling with a soft sigh that tells me she’s reveling in the scent of me just as I am in the scent of her. “No more lies, okay? No more secrets, no more lies, no more doing the wrong thing for the right reason. Like you said before. If we want this to work, we have to talk to each other.”

“I promise. No more secrets, no more lies.”

We sit there a few silent moments, wrapped up each other, until my sweet one speaks again.

“Shae knew who I was. At the hospital, I introduced myself just as ‘Waverly,’ and she knew who I was.”

“Yeah,” I chuckle, nodding into her neck. “When I called her to ask for the divorce, she sorta guessed there must be someone special. I think I spent close to an hour talkin’ her ear off about you.”

“Oh yeah?” Waverly drawls, disentangling our bodies just enough to get a glimpse of my blushing face. “What did you say?”

“Mm, mostly just how good you are in bed.”

“Nicole!” she scoffs, affronted, giving a cute little swat to my shoulder.

I snicker in response, tightening my arms until she’s basically folded in half on my lap, but it doesn’t matter, because we’re closer than we were before.

“Obviously, I told her how you are the most brilliant, caring, determined, adorable, _gorgeous_ , badass, unstoppable person in the whole wide world, and how I’m the luckiest sap to ever live that I get to love you and be with you.”

But my brunette godsend doesn’t preen at the praise like she normally does; she freezes, pulling her hands slightly away from me, palpably confused.

“You didn’t say ‘nice.’”

Now _I’m_ the confused one, and I lean back to get a better sense of her, trying to read her body language to figure out where this is coming from. “Huh?”

“There’s only two ways people ever describe me to someone who doesn’t know me: ‘everybody loves her,’ or ‘she’s the nicest girl in Purgatory.’”

Waves recites that like it’s _fact_ , like she’s translating a text from an old dead language nobody else can dream of contesting her on, and I don’t really know what to make of it.

“…Duly noted?”

“No,” she stammers, as if snapping out of some trance. “I don’t mean—I mean, no one ever describes _me_ , you know? It’s like they’re describing some perfect little pixie sprite who could never conceive of doing or feeling anything bad. When people think of me, they just think…nice.”

And oh fuck, that breaks my heart. I’m no stranger to the reductive caricature that is Waverly Earp, Nicest Girl in Purgatory™, or how much it has affected her, how much her precedential reputation has stunted her confidence in every way. But she’s been getting so much better, lately, I thought.

Or maybe, she’s just had a few other existential/identity crises on her plate, so she had no room for this particular one.

Still, the ever-diligent girlfriend, I shake my head firmly, and remind her in no uncertain terms, “Sweetie, you are so, _so_ much better than ‘nice.’”

She sniffs, slightly, tracing a fingertip down my sternum, leaving goosebumps in her wake.

“You missed a very important adjective when you were listing my best attributes to your secret wife.”

“Oh yeah?” I simper, allowing myself the tiniest glimmer of hope in response to her playful tone.

“Forgiving.”

I release a monster of a breath, one I didn’t even realize I was holding, and for once this evening, when tears spring to my eyes, I don’t fight them, because for once, they’re happy tears. “Really?”

“Some of it might take a little more time, a few more talks, but…yeah. I hate fighting with you. I hated fighting with you even before you got bit and almost died trying to save me, and, well. We both made mistakes. Now we can grow from them, together. Right?”

“Right,” I agree, stooping my head low to bury my face in her chest, nosing past her low collar to press a series of earnest kisses to the skin covering her heart, the heart I hope like hell she’ll still allow me to hold.

She strokes my temple with her thumb, waiting for my compulsive show of affection to play out before she asks, in a quavering, apprehensive voice, “So you’ll forgive me?”

I look at her, and I remember when she first admitted to her transgression.

We were standing in the open field, watching Perry’s helicopter fly away with Alice on board, and I let her cry into my chest for a while, her arms clutching onto me as if I might fly away, too.

“I’m so happy you’re okay,” she said to me, for about the hundredth time since I’d woken up; but for once, we had time for more conversation to follow that.

“You’re gonna have to fill me in on like, everything that happened since I got bit,” I chuckled darkly, and much to my despair, she stiffened in my arms.

“I kissed Rosita.”

Her words had hit me like a freight train, but I still couldn’t let go of her. “ _What?_ ”

“Yesterday, or the day before—I don’t even know anymore, but the night before you were bit. When I sent you that awful, cruel text, I—she was mad at Doc, and I was mad at you, and she had a spa gift certificate, for some reason? So she took me, and we were in a hot tub, drinking champagne, and I was _so_ mad at you, and I barely remember why, but I was, and she was being really nice to me, and I did the stupidest, dumbest thing I’ve ever done and I kissed her. But then I stopped! And I’m so sorry, I—”

“Please stop,” I implored her through gritted teeth. “I can’t—I can’t think about this right now.”

“There’s more,” she said tentatively, and I pulled back, fearing the worst. “No! Not like that, I didn’t—I mean, after I kissed her, and then after I stopped, I went to go change and…Tucker Gardner was there.”

“Tucker Gardner is dead,” I growled, too disturbed and alarmed by where her story could go.

“He is now,” she informed me. “Rosita killed him. He…was going to abduct me. Take me away from here, away from Wynonna, and you. You were right about him, Nicole. He was scary, and dangerous, and not a good person, and he didn’t—”

She’d cut herself off, then, before looking up at me and adding, “Also, Rosita’s a revenant, and she tried to steal Alice.”

At that point, I’d just sucked in a deep breath and begged her to table the conversation, begged her to wait for our Sorry Party and we’d lay it all out on the table then.

Of course, the details slowly eked out along the way, and by now, with my favorite person in the world draped in my lap, asking me for forgiveness, I really can’t even imagine being mad at her anymore. I feel betrayed, but it’s nothing I didn’t bring upon myself.

“This time,” I squint, one corner of my mouth twitching up. “But no more lies, no more secrets, and definitely no more kissing anyone else without at least talking to me about it first, okay?”

“Deal,” my wonderful, wonderful Waverly beams at me. A smile so bright it could make midnight look like high noon; the kind of smile that makes me fall in love with her all over again. “I can still kiss you though, right?”

“Whenever you want.”

“I _always_ want.”

Our lips meet in a kiss that is equal parts hungry and appreciative and _needy_ , mixed with a little bit of lingering apology and desire to prove our devotion and cement the promises we’ve made. Quickly, my tiny girlfriend adjusts her position so she’s straddling my legs, sitting up just enough to allow my hands to pursue their natural position: cupping the taut globes of her ass. As soon as they make contact, we both moan, luxuriating in the feeling.

“Sometimes I wonder which one of us likes it more when you touch my butt,” she giggles against my lips.

“Me,” I deadpan without missing a beat, staring lustfully at the delectable woman perched above me. “Definitely me.”

She smirks before ducking her head to suck on my neck as I continue to grope her ass indulgently.

“You know,” I suggest, my voice coming out as a low groan. “A wise woman once told me that the best sex is make-up sex.”

“Mm, she sounds like a keeper.”

I respond by initiating another kiss, only to whine when she pulls back from it.

“I think,” she purrs, more than a hint of mischief in her tone. “That since we have so much making up to do with each other, we should each get one night where we get to pick the make-up sex.”

My eyes widen as I gape wordlessly at this woman who is beyond my wildest dreams, and she seems amused with my expression, slipping ten fingers through my hair to cradle my neck as she continues in a low, seductive voice.

“Like, for example, to make up for the fact that you’re a controlling control freak with a secret wife, I think I should tie you to the bed with a strap-on around your hips and ride you until I’m spent, so I can show you just how well I can take care of myself without any help from you.”

Honestly, I think I black out for a second. My brain feels like it’s short circuiting from all the earthshattering images inundating my mind—the way her firm, perfect breasts will bounce when faces me, the way her firm, perfect ass will bounce when she chooses to tease me even more by facing away, the way her abs clench and quiver when she gets close. At first, she’ll keep up the charade that she’s just using me for her own pleasure, so her hands will roam her own body. They’ll tangle in her hair, play with her own nipples, sloppily circle her clit—but after an orgasm or two, she won’t be able to pretend any longer, and she’ll start grasping at me, not just for support, but for intimacy. She’ll claw at my shoulders, paw my breasts, even run her nails down my thighs if her angle allows. After a while, she’ll stop insisting I keep still and let me overtly roll and pump my hips to draw more pleasure from us both, until she starts to meet my rhythm, and her riding me turns into a joint effort. Eventually, she’ll get so sensitive, even a little sore, that the toy will be too much for her and she’ll decide to ride my face instead. If she’s feeling gracious, she might even untie my hands so I can feel her while I taste her.

Who could ask for anything more? Truly, it sounds more like that should be _my_ make-up sex, not the other way around.

“And I’m…not supposed to like that?”

She reacts with a teasing smirk. “The point isn’t that you’re not supposed to like it. The point is, it doesn’t matter if you like it—it only matters that I do.”

Waverly dances her fingertips across my collarbone, but makes sincere, caring eye contact, the kind she makes when she’s searching for consent, or lack thereof.

“Would that be okay with you?”

If she hadn’t broken my brain with her proposal, I might have come up with a witty retort for just how okay I am with it, but instead, I rather ineloquently reply, “Yes. _Very_ that, very—yes.”

“Yeah?” she grins back.

“Yes. Everything you just said. God. _Fuck_.”

A fire starts to burn between my legs as I imagine the exquisite torture of getting to watch her without getting to touch her. Christ, and I’ll get to _hear_ her, too, and Waverly’s sounds are—fuck. I’m fucked. I might even come more than she does.

“How many times do you think you can get yourself off before you can’t take any more?” I gulp, closing my eyes, pushing and pulling the flesh of her ass so her hips start to undulate, her center rocking against my navel. Her breath hitches audibly, and she rests her forehead against mine.

“Who knows? I’m nothing if not an overachiever.”

I wish I could say I’m not so pathetic that I actually whimper at that, but in my defense, Waverly fucking Earp is grinding in my lap, seducing me, so, if that’s not a reason to whimper, I can’t think of one. If nothing else, she doesn’t seem bothered by my desperate moans; she kisses me hard, swallowing every sound I make until she pulls away, eyes hooded and dark.

“What do you want for your make-up sex, Officer Haught?”

I sigh breathily, still palming her upper thighs, trying in vain to get her hips to move against me, to bring her pleasure, even through all our layers of clothing, but she stays still, so I cut to the chase, hoping my honesty will move things along. “Fuck. I just wanna go down on you all night long.”

I surge forward to suck at her pulse point, but she leans out of my reach.

“Wait, seriously?”

Pouting, I nod, still futilely chasing her skin.

“I just offered you a chance to ask for any kind of sex you want, and you wanna spend _another_ night just watching me come?”

To my surprise, Waverly looks genuinely shocked by this. It’s like she doesn’t know me at all, and I can’t help but laugh a little.

“Waves, have you ever seen yourself come?” I chuckle huskily. “God, baby, it’s like…if Niagara Falls were in the Grand Canyon, and then the northern lights were visible above it. Times a zillion. It’s basically too much beauty for the human brain to fully process, and to see it, and know that _I’m the one_ who gets to do that to you? Who gets to make that happen? It’s…it’s everything.”

Even that doesn’t cover it, though, but Waverly’s beaming at me like a fool in love, so hopefully I conveyed at least half of the glory which is making Waverly Earp come.

“Only you, baby,” she utters, and it sounds like an act of worship. “No one else gets to make me come like that; no one else _could_ make me come like that. It’s only you.”

“I like the sound of that,” I murmur against her lips before pressing in for another feverish kiss.

Then, it occurs to me what I just said.

“Sorry,” I cringe, pulling away. “That sounded gross and possessive, didn’t it?”

But my immaculate genius appears perplexed, her eyebrows furrowed as she studies my face.

“I mean, you’re your own person. You don’t belong to me, and me being all smug about how only I get to make you come—it’s not exactly cute, or kind to you. Kinda feels like something Champ would say.”

My concern, though, is only met with a wry chuckle.

“Sweetie, if you added up every single orgasm I ever had with Champ, it still wouldn’t be half as good as any one orgasm you’ve ever given me.”

A swell of pride starts filling my chest, but I resist it, rolling my eyes instead. “That’s not the point. Sure, it’s…good to know, I guess, but still. I don’t want you to think I’m like that. Like I think I own you, or you belong to me, or anything.”

“Of course I don’t think that,” my cutie promises, taking my face in both of her small, unstoppable hands. “I know you don’t think of me like that. I know you respect me just as much as you love me. You respect me, and you support me, and you are so, so patient and understanding with me. And you get this look in your eyes, when you—God, Nicole, sometimes you look at me like I’m a miracle, and it’s so… _overwhelming._ It makes me feel like I can fly at the same time that it scares the bejeezus out of me.”

I can’t stop the grin that spreads across my face any more than I can stop my cells from dividing. “You make me feel the same way, pretty girl.”

“So let me make you feel good,” she pouts in a way that I absolutely, definitely will not be able to say no to. “Please, baby? Please let me show you how much I want you.”

She seals the deal by rolling her hips down at a very different angle than before, an angle which puts a delicious friction against my pubic bone and makes it all the more impossible for me to deny her anything. If she asked me for a million dollars, I’d already be wearing a ski mask and on my way to pull a bank job.

“Well,” I croak, my voice cracking like a goddamn teenage boy. “I just said I wanted to go down on you; I didn’t say you couldn’t go down on me at the same time.”

A shiver runs down Waverly’s spine, but not the one that tells me she needs her bonus blanket, the one that tells me she can taste me on her tongue. “We haven’t done that for a while.”

“Which seems criminal, frankly.”

She releases a breathy laugh before clearing her throat, and I know all too well that a verbal contract is about to follow. God, I love my neurotic little nerd, I love her with all the blood in my veins and all the breath in my lungs and I will love her till the day I die, or maybe even longer if the afterlife turns out to be a thing.

“So,” she summarizes, her voice still thick with arousal, yet steady as she confirms the details. “For my make-up sex, I’ll ride you till I’m sore and you’re begging, and for your make-up sex, we’ll eat each other out till we pass out on top of each other. Are we both okay with that, or is there anything you want to talk about or establish first?”

Oh, man, I’d kill and die a million times over for this woman.

“I have one request,” I brave, but she exhales, as if relieved I’ve asked for something.

“During your make-up sex…will you wear my Stetson?”

Waverly groans, rocking her hips forward in a presumably unconscious move, because unlike previous motions, she doesn’t angle downward, and ends up grinding herself against my abdomen again.

Still, it draws a low moan from my throat.

“Yes, Officer Haught, I will wear your Stetson. And you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m _yours_.”

Once again, my baser instincts take over, and I practically growl at her words. “You need to be naked like, two days ago.”

“Yeah, okay,” Waverly husks. “But is it okay if we save the scenes for later, and tonight we just…play it by ear? Because I’m really, really happy you’re alive, and to be honest, I just want to feel you.”

Already unbuttoning her shirt, I nod into her now fully-exposed cleavage. “You read my mind, Waves.”

Despite the somewhat odd angle for her, her hand is in my pants within a minute, her fingers gliding through my folds as I suck greedily on her breasts.

“You’re so wet for me,” she groans into my ear, collecting my arousal and circling my clit with it.

“Always,” I gasp, clumsier than usual as I frantically work to undo her jeans and get my fingers inside her. “Just for you.”

Our lips meet in an eager, sloppy kiss, our need for each other so visceral and inexorable that our first climaxes of the night come right there and then, perched precariously on the couch, still almost fully dressed, her soft, perfect hair curtaining both our faces. Our releases arrive one right after the other, so close it’s hard to tell who starts first, and they become bound up together— _we_ become bound up together, absorbing and exchanging our passion for each other.

As we come down from our highs, Waverly grows increasingly frantic. It breaks me out of my post-orgasmic haze, because usually, it takes her at least few seconds to recover before she’s ready again—except, once my mind returns to my body, I realize that it doesn’t seem like she’s trying to start things back up quite yet. She’s clawing at me, clinging to me, pecking kisses to every inch of my skin she can reach, peeling off my shirt and knocking my bra askew so she can press her torso flush to mine and burrow her face in my hair.

Taken aback, I wrap my arms tightly around her, kissing her shoulder, stroking her hair, gently rocking her. I don’t know exactly where this is coming from, but I have an inkling, and moreover, it doesn’t really matter why. Soothing her, supporting her, serving her—it has rapidly become the salient reason for my existence.

At first I’m content to merely hold her and be held by her, but once I feel the tears sliding down her cheeks and onto my skin, I can’t stay quiet.

“Waves—”

“I almost lost you,” she sobs, her breath hot against my temple, still trying to draw me closer.

Biting back my own tears, I keep my touch firm and sure, scratching her scalp lightly with my nails in the way that always calms me down, swaying our bodies in that slow rhythm that always calms her down.

“You didn’t, Waverly.”

“I could have. I almost did,” she echoes, her hand fisting against my shoulder.

“I’m right here, my love,” I remind her, digging my face into the side of hers.

“Don’t leave me,” she pleads, barely audible, but soul-crushing all the same. “Please, don’t ever leave me.”

“I won’t,” I pledge, solemn and stalwart. “Not if I can help it.”

“Take me to bed.”

We move to the bed for round two, and three, and so on. I lose track, and I lose track of time, too—we’re at it for hours, probably, but who knows, who cares. We worship each other, cherish each other, and at first, it’s emotional and heavy such that it almost feels like gravity. Like if we stop, the world will, too. But every touch, every mark, every breath serves to remind us, serves as proof of life—proof of our individual lives, as well as our life together, and so slowly but surely, the reminders stack up, and our urgency dwindles. Soon, as we grow sweaty and sore and sated, it feels less vital and more luxurious, and we keep going because we _can_ , because we can bask in the glory of each other.

Eventually, though, even my little Energizer bunny starts to fatigue, and she curls up on top of me like a perfect postcoital blanket, our legs still intertwined, her head resting comfortably on my chest, listening to my heart rate calm down following our marathon activities, and I think this might be my favorite place in the universe.

I use the last of my energy and wherewithal to stretch down and pull the heaviest, warmest duvet over both our bodies, hoping my heat will keep my perennially-cold girlfriend from shivering through the night without her usual heap of blankets. I tuck us in, then slide my hands under the covers, down Waverly’s taut, strong obliques, and settle them atop the delicious downcurve of her ass.

“Home sweet home,” I murmur contently, and she shakes a bit with sleepy laughter.

“D’you hafta go to work tomorrow?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care. Gonna quit my job and devote my life to fucking you.”

“Don’t tempt me, babe,” she replies drowsily, shifting her body ever-so-slightly, but enough that her warm, sticky thigh presses in against my still-dripping center, and we moan in tandem.

“Tease.”

I feel, rather than see, the naughty smirk spread across Waverly’s face from where it’s nestled in my chest, and she rolls her thigh again, this time with purpose.

My insatiable overachiever.

I respond in kind, of course, because when life gives you Waverly Earp, you do whatever the fuck Waverly Earp wants. Slotting my leg between hers, we grind against each other in a jerky, wearied rhythm until, by some miracle, we bring each other to yet another peak. Then, we truly, totally collapse, both falling asleep before our muscles finish twitching or our breath is fully caught, our skin stuck together with sweat.

And I swear, if this isn’t heaven, then righteousness ain’t worth it.

\----

_Waverly’s POV_

When I wake up, it’s early. Like, stupid early. The first rays of dawn are creeping in through the curtains, casting a faint, purplish-grey haze over the room, and I blink blearily as I try to pinpoint why on Earth I’m awake.

It doesn’t take long.

Usually, especially given our incongruent sleeping temperatures, Nicole and I snuggle together for a while at bedtime, but roll away when one of us actually intends to sleep. Sometimes we’ll keep holding hands under my mountain of blankets, because we’re adorable, but by and large, we sleep peacefully on our respective sides of the bed, then come together again once we wake up in the morning. It’s the ideal arrangement for us both.

After our extra special bonus round last night, however, we did not roll away from each other; I didn’t even roll _off_ of her, so I’ve been sleeping spread out on top of her, our bodies separated by only a drying layer of sweat and slick, meaning I can feel, and hear, my baby’s heart pounding in her chest.

She grows fitful in her sleep, her hands clenching and unclenching around the curve of my waist, her body jerking and twitching intermittently. She moans, and whimpers, and whines—and thanks in equal parts to our voracious sex life and much-too-frequent close encounters with death, I thought I’d memorized and catalogued every moan, whimper, and whine in Nicole’s lexicon, be it from pleasure or pain, but these ones are new.

They sound… _scared_.

I hesitate; I’ve never seen Nicole have a nightmare before. I’ve never even really seen her _act_ scared, so I’m not sure if I should wake her up or let her be.

But when I raise my head up and see my favorite face contorted in agony and fear, it shatters my soul, and I become determined to make it better. I reach up, smoothing my thumb over her cute little worry wrinkle, gently shushing her in between firm kisses to her impeccable jawline.

“Wake up, sweetie,” I soothe. “It’s okay, you’re safe.”

Luckily, even in my somnolent state, I have the foresight to brace myself against Nicole’s shoulders, because she jolts awake with enough force that she would have otherwise knocked me clean off the bed.

“Whoa, whoa,” I coo, gently coaxing her back down again the mattress. “You’re okay. You were just having a bad dream.”

But the lulling words don’t appear to mean much to her, and no sooner does the faraway, dazed look in her eyes start to dissipate than it is instantly replaced with sheer panic, and she flings her arms around me, apologizing profusely and needlessly.

“I’m so sorry, Waves. Jesus, fuck, I’m so sorry.”

Deeply flummoxed, I resort to stroking her hair and reassuring her in soft, dulcet tones, “Hey, hey. It’s okay, it’s fine. You’re safe, I’m safe. It was a dream, it wasn’t real.”

Nicole gulps audibly, still clinging to me like it’s the only thing keeping us alive. “Yeah. Just a dream.”

“D’you wanna talk about it?” I offer, knowing already what the answer will be.

“No,” Nicole responds instantly, predictably. “It’s okay. I’m okay. But…can you stay here? I like feeling you above me.”

I frown, doubtful. “I’m not crushing you?”

“Baby, Calamity Jane weighs more than you. Although she isn’t nearly as comfy as you when she decides to sleep on my chest.”

Chuckling, I settle further into the embrace, resuming my prior position by curling my head against Nicole’s sternum, listening intently to the gradually relaxing (but still faster than normal) heartbeat beneath that flawless ivory skin.

“You don’t have bad dreams that often. I didn’t know whether to wake you up or not.”

“Sorry,” Nicole mutters sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

I feel the body beneath me as it flinches, followed by its deep rumbling as it says, “Still. Sorry.”

“I’m not mad. I just want to know how to take care of you. I _like_ to take care of you, and if you—okay, so when I have a bad dream, I like to be woken up. I don’t want to suffer through it if I don’t have to. But Wynonna, she…I don’t know. She’d rather suffer through it, I guess, and I don’t understand it, but I know that about her, so even though it sucks, and I hate it, I just have to let her suffer, because that’s how she prefers it, and if I do anything else, she gets mad at me, and I—”

“Baby,” Nicole interjects. “I really wanna hear you out, but I’m still super sleepy, and you’re kinda rambling, so can we please table this conversation until we’ve slept a few more hours?”

I blush furiously. “Yeah. Of course. Sorry.”

Adjusting my weight, I prepare to move off of her, give her space to sleep peacefully, but I’m abruptly halted by two strong arms intently tightening their grip around my waist.

“If you’re about to roll off me for your own comfort, I can live with that—but if you’re thinking you should do it for my benefit, I’d really prefer if you didn’t.”

Her request is quintessential Nicole—always ready to meet me where I am with benevolence and sensitivity, never pushing, while still patiently and kindly letting me know where she stands.

I don’t know what I did to deserve someone who loves me like this; certainly it must be some kind of mistake, and soon enough she’ll leave me like everyone else does, but I’m content to enjoy it while it lasts.

Reaching back, I guide her arms further down my body, informing her, “Well, when you had your nightmare, your hands had drifted dangerously high. Maybe you should be more diligent about keeping them on my butt, where they belong. Then you won’t have bad dreams.”

Nicole eagerly rectifies the situation, her hands attaching to my ass like magnets.

“You’re a genius,” she manages to mumble before, presumably, falling asleep.

Meanwhile, I lay awake for a little while longer, pressing my ear to her heart, counting each beat as evidence that she’s here, she’s alive and she’s _here_. Her heart still beats, and at least for now, it beats for me.


	2. i've got a right to hurt inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waverly opens up to Nicole.

_Nicole’s POV_

When we wake up again, it’s hours later. We do so more or less at the same time, thanks to the symphony of Wynonna trying to make coffee while violently hungover. Unfazed by this quotidian cacophony, we don’t stir much, only to settle deeper into our embrace. One of my hands wanders up to comb through honey brown hair, making sure that as I try to stretch out my neck and shoulders, I don’t disrupt the head using my chest as a pillow.

“Mornin’, beautiful,” I yawn.

“Mornin’, world’s sexiest, comfiest mattress.”

“And here I thought I was just being selfish, getting to hold you all night,” I hum, kissing the top of her head. “You weren’t cold?”

“Nah, you really live up to your name there, Deputy Haught,” she murmurs groggily, nuzzling my collarbone.

“Anything for my favorite girl.”

We lie quietly for a while, just listening to the ambient sounds of Wynonna rifling through the kitchen cabinets, until:

“Waverly! Where did you hide the rest of my bourbon?!”

But the beckoned girl merely sighs, snuggles deeper into her boob pillow.

“Oh, wait, never mind! Found it.”

Then the front door slams open and shut, and through the ever-so-thin walls of the homestead, we can hear the distraught heir trudging through the snow toward the barn, slamming that door behind her as well.

Though I’m reluctant to leave the perfect little bubble we’ve built for ourselves, I know Waverly is probably worried to all hell about her sister.

(Also, if I’m being totally honest, I’m maybe a little worried, too. Not that I’d ever admit it unless under extreme duress, but I am. I mean, Wynonna has been through a lot, especially in the past week, can you blame me?)

So, I take the risk, being the loyal, caring girlfriend I am, and ask, “Should we go after her?”

Waverly shakes her head sadly, and I wish I could see her face to read how she feels. “Give her some time alone. S’long as she stays on the homestead, she can’t get make too much trouble. For now, let her drink and grieve in solitude for a bit.”

“Okay,” I confirm. “Just lemme know what I can do, okay?”

She turns her head, reaching across to trace the lines of my arm muscles with a single finger, lingering on the edges of the bandage wrapping around my wound from the Widow’s bite.

“It hurt a lot, didn’t it?”

I steel, sweeping hair away from her mesmerizing face in a feeble attempt to examine the emotions written all over it, even from my inopportune angle.

“Not as much as losing you would have hurt.”

Waverly tenses, now, and she pulls her hand away from my arm. “Don’t do that. Don’t sweet-talk me, please.”

“I’m not sweet-talking, Waves,” I persist, before thinking better than to even fib like that, given the fact we’re still teetering on the fence between fighting and forgiveness. “Okay, maybe I was sweet-talking you a little. I mean…yeah. It hurt, a lot. Probably the worst pain I’ve ever felt, but I’d suffer that pain every day for the next millennium if it meant keeping you safe and well.”

It’s still sweet-talking, maybe, but at least it’s more descriptive and accurate sweet-talking. It doesn’t seem to do the trick, though, because as I brush hair away from her eyes, I notice them welling up with tears. She adjusts her position again, decidedly not looking at me, instead laser-focusing on the strip of gauze wrapping my forearm.

“When I was little,” Waverly begins, her voice small and forlorn. “Before Mama left, but mostly afterwards…Wynonna used to wake me up in the middle of the night to play hide-and-go-seek.”

Bemused by the non sequitur as well as the information it contained, I furrow my eyebrows, stilling my hand and instead trying to crane my neck to get a better view of my best baby.

“…What?”

“Yeah. I’d be all warm and cozy in my bed, and she’d shake me awake and tell me she wanted to play hide-and-seek.”

“And you’d say yes?”

“Of course. I was a little kid, and my cool big sister wanted to play with me. I didn’t care when or why, I was always just excited she was paying attention to me.”

My throat dries as I recall the stories Waverly told me when Willa reappeared, about the horrible, horrible way her eldest sister used to treat her and how Wynonna, who equal parts looked up to Willa and looked after Waverly, never quite seemed to find the right balance.

It’s a miracle I had the self-restraint not to punch Willa Earp straight in the face despite copious opportunity, motivation, and desire to do so.

“Anyway, she’d wake me up and tell me to go hide, and she’d find me. But it would take her a really, really long time. Like, hours, sometimes. At first I thought I was just a really good hider, but even if I hid in really obvious places where she’d easily find me, she’d still take forever. Then I thought, maybe she’d forgotten about me. Or it was all some mean joke—wake me up in the middle of the night, make me hide somewhere for hours before coming to find me.”

My outrage evolves into one I can hardly contain—picturing tiny, perfect Waverly, sleepy and probably freezing half to death, huddled up somewhere for hours waiting for her sister to find her. I struggle but manage to stay calm and wait for the rest, however, moderating my reaction to merely an impossibly tighter grip on my forevermore-astonishing storyteller.

“And once, just a few months before the attack on the homestead, she’d already woken me up like, three times in one week to play hide-and-seek. So the fourth time, I was sleepy, and mad, thinking it was all some cruel prank she was playing on me, and I yelled at her and told her I wouldn’t play. But she wouldn’t take no for an answer—she was _begging_ me, practically, to go hide, and I said no because she wouldn’t come find me, and she said—”

Waverly’s breath catches in her throat, and vicariously, so does mine.

“She said she promised she’d come find me once it was all over.”

I stiffen, grinding my teeth together as I connect the dots. “She was tricking you into hiding from him.”

“She was trying to protect me,” Waverly explains, a fond recollection in her voice that only surfaces when she speaks of Wynonna. “Not just from him, but from…knowing what he did to her. What he wanted to do to me, but he couldn’t find me.”

And I try to stay strong—really, I do, I know Waverly relies on me to be strong, to be her rock, particularly in moments like this—but I can’t help the emotions that swell up in reaction. I can’t help the fact that now more than ever, I want to wrap this pristine, breathtaking angel of a woman in at least four to six blankets and a layer or two of bubble wrap, prevent her from ever getting so much as a papercut ever again. I want to do whatever it takes to protect her from harm, emotional or physical or any other kind.

Not to mention that imagining baby Waverly, then imagining someone wanting to _intentionally inflict pain_ on the precious little bean…? Hell, I’m tempted to look up some evil dark spell that will resurrect Ward Earp from his grave just so I can shoot him dead between the eyes. Fuck mercy, fuck the consequences, fuck anything that doesn’t involve him paying for what he did to my Waverly, and to Wynonna.

Except for the part where Waverly probably wouldn’t want any of that—that knowledge suffices to temper my boiling blood and violent revenge fantasies.

“That night, when I told her I wouldn’t play hide-and-seek, and she argued with me…we must have wasted enough time that he stumbled his way inside, looking for me, but for once he actually found me. After Mama left…well, she used to bear the brunt of it for us. Then she left, and I think he blamed me for that, too. All that time, he’d been looking for me. Looking to hurt me. But Wynonna would protect me. And that night, when he came home drunk as heck and looking for me, looking to take it out on me…he actually found me. He saw me, he knew where I was, and _still_ , Wynonna jumped in front. She was barely twelve, barely half his size, but she started yelling at him, provoking him, until he stopped even looking at me. Like he forgot I was in the room, he got so mad at her. And then he…”

Tears are flowing freely down her face and onto my bare skin, but neither of us really care to notice. All I care to do is cradle the small, quivering body on top of me, showering the top of her head with frequent, rhythmic kisses. I kid myself it’s to take care of her, but realistically, it’s likely just as much a self-soothing ritual, especially because she still can’t seem to bring herself to look at me.

Waverly breathes harshly, her voice cracking as she continues. “I’d never seen—I _still_ haven’t seen anything like it. A grown man assaulting a defenseless child, his own _daughter_ , and I—she took it all so I didn’t have to. Even the whole time it was happening, she was begging me to keep my eyes closed, she kept trying to escape the room so he’d chase her and I wouldn’t have to see anymore. But even when I couldn’t see it, I heard it. And suddenly, I remembered hiding for all those years, but still… _hearing_ it. I think I knew what was going on the whole time, I just couldn’t…understand.”

I can’t take it anymore; I hook my arms underneath Waverly’s and physically hike her up until that earthshattering face is level with my own, and I take it reverently in my hands, focusing all my energy on _soaking it in_ , soaking in the feeling of being in love with this woman who is so goddamn strong and indelible, soaking in the feeling that I’m trusted by this woman who has no reason to trust anyone, soaking in the responsibility behind that, the gravity of it. I look deep, deep into Waverly’s eyes, into her soul, and make a solemn oath to never _ever_ hurt her again; I stare into the depths of those bottomless hazel eyes which could make or break my life, which could convince me to do just about anything, and I pledge a solemn oath that as long as I have the privilege of being wanted by Waverly Earp, I will treat her as she is deserved: with ultimate veneration, and not a smidgeon less.

In order to do so, of course, I will rely on my three greatest strengths: listening, loyalty, and lovemaking.

(Though the last one probably isn’t super appropriate in this particular situation.)

“Why are you telling me this, Waves?” I prod, choking on my own voice more than intended or preferred. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I wanna hear every single story you want to tell me—hell, I wanna hear about every single second of every day you’ve ever lived—but you don’t normally talk about this stuff, so I think it’s important I know where this is coming from.”

Waverly responds by resting her forehead against mine, closing her eyes, while her fingers reach up to resume gingerly caressing the spot where Widow bitemarks exist below heavily-wrapped gauze.

“Everybody always tries to protect me,” she explains. “They tell me to hide, or run, or…but other than Wynonna—and I guess maybe Mama, before she left—nobody has ever really _defended_ me, you know? They try to keep me away from bad stuff, but when it happens, they don’t—and I guess I never really understood the difference. Because to me, it was always just Wynonna being Wynonna. But it isn’t just her, is it? You could have kept going for the gun and let me get bit instead of you, but you didn’t. Instead you…parkoured over the couch and put yourself in danger so that I didn’t have to be.”

I frown. “It was instinct, Waves. S’not like I deliberated all too hard.”

“That’s my point,” Waverly clarifies, accompanied by a chuckle, one that sounds almost lighthearted in its disbelief. “Your instinct was to save me, instead of yourself.”

“…Okay…?”

“That’s my instinct, too. That’s always my instinct.”

“I’m still not following.”

She pulls back, opening her eyes just to roll them at me before leaving a delicate kiss on my closed, downturned lips. “Just…thank you, is all.”

“You don’t have to thank me for loving you, Waverly. I should be thanking you for _letting_ me love you. It’s the greatest, coolest thing I’ve ever gotten to do,” I declare, craning my neck to press our foreheads back together, trying to convey, through this one small gesture, every drop of sincerity and earnestness and utter worship I feel for her. “And I’m going to do everything within my power to never take it for granted again, okay? I can’t promise I’ll always do it right, or that I’ll never fuck up, but I swear by my hand and God, I will always try my absolute best, and I will never take you for granted.”

One of Waverly’s tears drips onto my face, so I proceed to fervently kiss the rest away, not fully knowing why she’s crying, but overwhelmed by a profound need to fix it, to make it better.

“I’m so sorry I hurt you, baby,” I choke between soft kisses. “I’m so sorry I lied to you, I’m so sorry I kept things from you that you absolutely deserved to know. I’m sorry I was too afraid of losing you to do right by you.”

Waverly waits until I’m done pecking away errant tears before capturing my lips in a full-mouthed, shameless-morning-breath kiss. She translates everything into that kiss: every apology, every reciprocated vow, emotion, proclamation which she can’t work up the courage to vocalize quite yet.

And I understand it fluently.

Except, she does manage to find the words for one apology, one almost-all-encompassing apology.

“I’m sorry I doubted you, or your devotion, for even half a second.”

For a second, I think to object to her wording, remind her that she should never apologize to me for her feelings, remind her that she was right to doubt me, anyway. However, the whim is fleeting, because I know Waverly, and I know she’s not truly apologizing for her doubt, but for the fact that she allowed her doubt to consume her, to drive her actions, to defy her values and her commitment to me. She’s apologizing that she obliged her doubt, let it break her until she responded to my act of betrayal with her own version.

If there’s any apology I’d accept from her, it’s that one.

So instead of disputing her, I settle for this:

“I love you, Waverly Earp. I love you, and I promise I won’t keep you in the dark, or tell you to hide. Ever. But I can’t promise that I won’t jump in between you and whatever imminent danger is headed toward you, whether it’s a crazy demon monster or a normal ass bullet, because that’d be like askin’ me not to blink, or breathe. I can try my hardest to stop it, but it’ll find a way to happen anyway, when it needs to.”

She slumps against me, crying openly but trying in vain to keep me from seeing; I know better. We hold each other impossibly closer, so close we might as well be sharing a skin, and though we don’t so much as kiss, the moment becomes a culmination of the last few days, and namely the last twelve hours, such that our intimacy reaches a previously unseen level.

Naturally, then, we’re rudely interrupted by a distinct series of sounds: first, a gunshot; then, breaking glass; then, Wynonna fucking Earp declaring expletive-laced victory over whatever glass object she just shot with Peacemaker.

Sighing against my baby’s lips, I venture a guess.

“Does that mean she’s already finished the rest of the bourbon?”

“Probably,” Waverly scowls. “She does have a few long months of not drinking to make up for.”

I sigh again before giving her a quick, chaste kiss—then another, then another, and then, just for good measure, another. “Okay. How bout I go into town and pick up another few bottles so you two can stay safe and sound here for the day?”

“Baby, you don’t have to do that.”

“I know. But I should stop by and make sure Nedley isn’t workin’ too hard. He just got outta the hospital, too,” I offer as my flimsy excuse, wincing as I try to muster up the courage to admit the truth. “Besides, I…”

But I can’t get it out, and I end up clearing my throat repeatedly as I pull a series of faces which cause Waverly to titter.

“It’s okay. You don’t need to say it out loud. I know you secretly love her, just like she secretly loves you.”

I match her infectious giggles. “I thought we said no more secrets.”

“I’ll grant you this one exception.”

We get distracted again, languidly making out, hands slowly and gently caressing (mostly) innocent expanses of skin as our bodies fully melt into each other.

Then, of course, Wynonna slams the barn door, and we break from our trance, harshly reminded that a reality exists outside this bed.

“We should put on clothes before she comes barging in here.”

“Mm,” Waverly agrees. “I wanna be the only one who gets to see your hot, naked body.”

“See, when you say stuff like that, it sounds all sweet and romantic,” I lament. “When I say it, it sounds like I’m a jealous neanderthal.”

“Never,” she murmurs, nosing my jaw, leaving lazy kisses on my neck. “I like it when you say stuff like that. Makes me feel wanted.”

“Oh, beautiful girl. There aren’t enough words for how much I want you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Waverly sucks lightly at my pulse point, and I can’t help but moan. We lose ourselves in our affection such that we must not notice the usual din of Wynonna entering the house and marching upstairs—we only notice when she pounds on the door hard enough to rattle the whole wall.

“Christ—Wynonna!” Waverly squeaks in a voice exclusively used by little sisters who are being pestered by an elder sibling. “Don’t come in!”

“Are you kidding? It reeks of sex through the door, you think I’d risk going in there without a hazmat suit?”

My nostrils flare, but I bite her lip against the urge to snark back.

“There’s another bottle in the desk drawer, Wynonna,” Waverly offers, and there’s a prolonged silence afterward.

“I know,” she mumbles.

And I swear I can feel my girlfriend’s heart breaking from where our chests are molded together. She swallows heavily, blinking back tears.

“We’re just getting dressed now. I’ll be down in five minutes.”

Wynonna doesn’t respond to that, but we hear her footsteps trudging away.

Waverly seems deflated, so I give her my best, brightest, most encouraging smile.

“ _Go_ ,” I insist, patting her hip lightly to reinforce the point. “Keep her company. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Stay for breakfast?” Waverly pleads, contesting my smile with her most convincing pout. “Please? I’ll make something for you to bring to Sheriff Nedley, too.”

“How could I ever say no to that face?”

Part of me knows the truth: I can’t. I’ll never be able to.

That part is growing exponentially with every minute I spend graced by the presence of Waverly Earp.


	3. i've got to do things my own way, darling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Nicole's away, the Earp sisters do what the Earp sisters do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took a few liberties with Nicole's background in this chapter, because...well because I felt like it. It's not wildly out of canon, but still. Either way, thank for reading and I hope you enjoy.

_Waverly’s POV_

Wynonna doesn’t engage much throughout breakfast. I try to keep upbeat and positive, while Nicole, perhaps more wisely, tries to keep quiet.

By the time I send off my gorgeous, tenacious workaholic with a tender kiss and a wrapped-up plate of blueberry pancakes to bring the sheriff, Wynonna is already over a quarter the way through her latest fifth of whiskey. As I sit across from her at the table, I cross my arms, openly frowning at her barely-touched plate.

“Eat, Wynonna.”

“M’not hungry,” she mutters, idly spinning her bottle’s lid on the tabletop. “So, you two worked it all out, or are you stuffing down your problems like a true Earp?”

I bristle for a second, but when Wynonna doesn’t seem to recognize her mistake, when she by all accounts appears to forget that I’m not, in fact, a true Earp, I course-correct, decide to focus on what’s important.

“I tried to just ignore it and move on, but Nicole wouldn’t let me. She wanted to be mature and talk about it, instead.”

Wynonna snorts, downing a quick sip of whiskey. “Very on-brand.”

“It was sweet. And she was right. I feel a lot better, now that I…understand.”

“Understand about the secret wife and the control freakiness?” my formidably overprotective sister scoffs back.

“She loves me,” I assert, wholeheartedly, unwaveringly, with utmost conviction. “She loves me and she was afraid of losing me.”

Wynonna rolls her eyes, and my anger begins to flare up.

“Wynonna, other than you, nobody’s ever been _afraid_ of losing me.”

“Just cuz she’s the first, doesn’t mean she’ll be the last.”

“Well, I want her to be!”

She flinches, wide-eyed and gawking at me like she’s afraid I’m an imposter—I guess she’s still unfamiliar with hearing that particular, insistent passion from me when it comes to my romantic partner.

“Okay. Sorry. Jeez.”

I squirm in my seat a bit. “We promised each other. No more lies, no more secrets. I forgave her, she forgave me.”

“For your one lame kiss with Rosita, the baby-snatching revenant?”

“I didn’t know she was a revenant _or_ a baby-snatcher!” I huff. “And even if she wasn’t those things, it was still a mistake. A huge, giant, biggest-mistake-I’ve-ever-made kind of mistake.”

“Eeehhh,” Wynonna drawls skeptically, grimacing. “There was the time you made a deal with the Iron Witch, accidentally disappeared me, and released Bulshar from his tomb—all in one fell swoop.”

“Yeah, but I got you back, and we’re gonna stop Bulshar because we’re badass demon hunters who can’t be stopped,” I counter, not allowing a hint of defensiveness into my voice. “Also, I did it all to save Nicole, and I’d do it again. There’s basically nothing I wouldn’t have done to save her.”

She sucks her teeth, tilting her head from side to side as she considers the response.

“Okay, but there was that time you touched the goo.”

“But that did help stop an evil demon that had been tracking Dolls for years, so. Suck it.”

Wynonna raises an eyebrow, scrutinizing me almost… _maternally_. “So you’re really not mad at her for the lying and the betraying and the hot doctor wife?”

“The hot doctor wife who she hadn’t talked to for nearly two years until she asked for a divorce after we started dating,” I clarify, my voice level, though I feel just a few steps away from losing my cool again. “They haven’t been a part of each other’s lives for a long time.”

“Deputy Haught asked for a divorce, or Doctor Hot did?”

“Nicole did; that’s why Shae knew who I was at the hospital.”

Wynonna shakes her head, taking a long pull of whiskey.

“Please, Wynonna. Please stop looking for reasons to doubt Nicole. She loves me. You have to see that she loves me, right? She’d do anything for me, and I’d do anything for her, and—please, Wynonna. Stop acting like you have to protect me from her. You should know by now that you don’t have to.”

Wynonna smiles forlornly, an affectionate gleam in her eyes as she reaches out to lace her fingers with mine.

“And you should know by now that I don’t care how much she loves you. I don’t care that I can tell from the way she looks at you that she’d crawl cross-country through glass just to maybe see a picture of your pinky toe through binoculars—”

“Wow, that’s specific,” I comment under my breath. She continues as if I said nothing.

“I don’t care. I will always, _always_ doubt anyone who loves you, including myself. I will always be ready to protect you, you dumb nerd. I don’t expect I’ll have to, at least not with Nicole, but I’ll be ready anyway. Protecting you is in my blood, and sometimes I wonder if it’s the only reason I’m still here.”

She pauses, briefly, staring into the depths of her liquor.

“At least, before…”

I squeeze my big sister’s hand. “We’re gonna end the curse, and we’re gonna get her back.”

But Wynonna pulls her hand away, trying to surreptitiously swipe away tears as she drinks. “What if she’s better off?”

I maintain an unperturbed façade despite my internal strife of wanting to smack her and hug her at the same time—if only she knew how wonderful she is, how selfless and protective and indomitable when it comes to keeping her people safe. Behind her currently impenetrable defense mechanisms, she’s a pretty exceptional candidate for motherhood.

Not that she’d ever believe me.

So I shrug, and I speak to her in her own language, hoping she’ll understand.

“All I know is I’ve been way, way better off during the time you’ve been in my life than out of it. I mean, you left for three years and I dated _Champ_. For _basically_ the whole time.”

If nothing else, it generates a genuine laugh from my dismantled sister—even if she does wash it down with another hearty sip of whiskey.

There’s a comfortable yet poignant silence between us which extends for several minutes until I take a risk and say the thing that’s been at the forefront of my mind all morning. For months and months, it’s been slowly creeping in from the peripheries of my thoughts, but over the course of this tumultuous fortnight, it’s burst in and staked its claim front and center.

Still, I haven’t said it out loud yet. I’ve tried to bring it up with Nicole, but it only feels more impossible with each attempt. My emotionally-stunted older sister, at least, will understand, will relate.

“She loves me _so_ much, Wynonna,” I lament. “And every time I try to open my mouth and tell her I feel the same way, I feel like I’m… _choking_.”

Wynonna smiles sadly. “She knows, baby girl.”

“I should be able to tell her.”

“And I should be able to raise my daughter, but life sucks sometimes,” Wynonna barks adamantly. “ _Our_ lives in particular suck a lot, and you finally found someone who for some bizarre reason totally gets that and accepts it and wants to hold your hand through it, so stop torturing yourself and just…enjoy it.”

She takes a quick sip before smirking salaciously, adding, “And I don’t just mean the orgasms.”

I scrunch my nose briefly, but then my expression softens as I explore her tense face and register what this particular quip is compensating for. “Have you talked to Doc yet?”

“I’ve talked to him,” she mutters in reply. “He has not talked to me.”

“I’m sorry, Wynonna.”

“Like I said before—let’s forget the apologies and sympathies and focus on hunting down dickhead demons.”

I sigh heavily. Rejecting my apology is _not_ the same thing as forgiving me for what I did, and rejecting my sympathies is _not_ the same thing as talking through her problems with me, but I know, for now, I should take what I get from her. At least she isn’t angry with me, or shutting me out, or running away again.

So I don’t push—if it were Nicole, I would have pushed, but Wynonna is Wynonna, and pushing would only cause more trouble, so instead, I reach across the table and swipe the bottle from her hands. She starts to protest ( _vehemently,_ might I add) until I take a drink from it for myself, at which point she scowls, but stops making moves to get it back from me, knowing I’ll share.

“Okay,” she grumbles. “But slow down, is all, that’s our second-to-last bottle.”

“Nicole’s bringing back more after she checks on Nedley.”

She chortles. “You got her so whipped.”

I glare at her and steal a larger-than-necessary sip of whiskey as payback.

In the end, it takes way longer than I expect for Nicole to return. Obviously, my ever-vigilant, ever-considerate girlfriend sends me frequent texts telling me there’s no reason to worry, she’s just running a little late—but they don’t ever explain _why_ she’s running later than expected, just that she is, and that she’s safe and she’s okay, and it’s sweet and lovely but it absolutely does _not_ stop me from catastrophizing, and I’m six inches from storming Nedley’s castle and demanding his deputy at gunpoint, because by now, Wynonna had already finished all her liquor and slept it off, so she’s been up for about half an hour, growing rapidly antsy for more.

And it’s not that I’m super eager to give my alcoholic sister her fix, it’s more that Nicole should have been back ages ago, and why isn’t she here?

When I hear the distinct sound of her police cruiser crunching the half-melted snow and gravel outside the porch, I exhale in relief, though part of me is still worried she’s been hurt—and, truly, at this point, finding out she was so much as minorly inconvenienced on her first day back, when she _didn’t even need to go back to begin with,_ would eviscerate me. I should have put up more of a fight this morning, when she said she was going into the station, but I didn’t realize she’d actually be _working_ , I thought she was just checking in on things.

I can’t really manage to be angry with her, though. Especially not when she shuffles in—looking half-dead and carrying a couple plastic bags in each hand, her shoulders sagging far further than their apparent burden—and only making it as far as the living room before she collapses into a chair, dropping her bags in front of her. A bottle rolls loose from one of them, but she manages to wearily trap it with the toe of her boot before it ventures too far toward the lit fireplace.

“Three whiskey, three bourbon whiskey, and just for the hell of it, I thought I’d mix it up and get you a rum and a tequila, too,” she recites.

“Great,” Wynonna snarks. “But what am I supposed to drink tomorrow?”

Meanwhile, I’m all but launching myself across the room to crouch in front of my exhausted baby, trying to assess her situation. Taking her ashen cheeks in my hands, I roam my eyes over every inch of her, analyzing my favorite body for any sign of distress.

“Nicole,” I ask cautiously. “Are you okay?”

She nods, her eyes drooping closed. “Promise. Just a long day.”

Then she tries to wink at me, and she’s half-asleep, so it looks silly as all heck, but it’s all the demonstration I need to know my girl is no worse for the wear. So I smile subtly, sweeping red wisps away from the world’s prettiest face.

“My honey looks so sleepy. Too much too soon, I think, yeah?”

Nicole grunts, and whether it’s in protest or acknowledgement, I’m not sure, because she proceeds to slur, “Lonnie’s stupid. He shouldn’t be allowed to cop.”

Wynonna snickers from the kitchen, and I blush with the recognition that she’s been listening in, but otherwise ignore it in favor of taking care of my sleepy godsend.

“No, he shouldn’t. Let’s get you up to bed, yeah?”

“Tryin’ to flirt with me?”

I can’t help but flash a dumb, lovestruck grin as I confess, “Always.”

And sure, Wynonna gags audibly, but what else is new?

Nicole manages to drag herself upstairs with little assistance, but once she’s in my bedroom, she seems to instinctually succumb to her fatigue, and as I work to divest her of her uniform, she slumps against me, as if her neck can no longer bother to hold up her head, so my shoulders have to bear the burden.

All the same, she continues to insist, in a slurred, sleepy voice:

“M’not tired.”

I ignore it the first four or five times, but when I’ve gotten out of her work clothes and begin rooting around the drawers for her favorite sleep shirt, I finally roll my eyes and snark back.

“Of course you’re not, baby, you’re just barely standing up properly or keeping your eyes open, but you’re wide awake.”

“How come you’re so pretty?”

Despite myself, I smirk, turning back to survey her with nothing short of devout appreciation.

“How come you are?”

My drowsy dreamboat sways in place, but manages to counter, “Touché.”

Rolling my eyes, I slip a shirt over her head, and though her limbs abide my intent, her eyes don’t leave mine throughout the whole procedure.

“I don’t wanna sleep,” she protests, slipping her hand low on my hip.

Jeez, and she says I’m the insatiable one. I stand on my tiptoes, peck a kiss to her nose, and wrap my arms around her waist, coercing her toward the bed.

“Just get comfy, okay?” I compromise, knowing she’ll be asleep before I leave the room. “I have to go get Wynonna settled, but I’ll be back really soon to keep you company, cutie pie.”

Nicole sulks, but reluctantly agrees, so I tuck her into bed and provide her with abundant goodnight kisses.

She’s asleep before I leave the room.

By the time I get downstairs, Wynonna’s already made a considerable dent in her first bottle of whiskey, and she shoots a trademark grin at me as soon as I come into her field of vision. She’s draped herself across a chair in the living room, so I settle into the one next to her, wrapping a blanket around myself instinctively.

Predictably, Wynonna begins the conversation.

“Have I ever mentioned how disgusting you two are together?”

“Only every time you see us together,” I retort. “Though I appreciate you at least pretending to restrain yourself when she was down here.”

She shrugs. “She brought me booze, I owed her. Consider it even, now.”

Glowering at her, I grab my mug from the end table, ignoring her and her complaints as I steal the whiskey from her hands and pour myself a healthy measure.

“She had a long day, and we didn’t exactly get a lot of rest last night.”

Wynonna gags theatrically, again, scrunching her face up as she snatches her bottle back. “Yeah, yeah, make-up sex is amazing, I get it.”

“Oh, we haven’t even gotten to the make-up sex yet,” I smirk triumphantly. “That was ‘thank goodness we’re both still alive’ sex. The make-up sex will be much dirtier.”

She stares at me, bewildered. “Should I be appalled or proud right now?”

“Proud.”

“Thought so,” she tuts, betraying her feigned disgust by allowing a corner of her mouth to quirk up in a smile. “Just make sure you give me a heads-up, all right? Or at least have the courtesy to relocate your loud, kinky sex to Haughtstuff’s place. I can handle a lot of shit, but hearing my baby sister scream ‘harder, daddy’ at the top of her lungs all night long is pushing it, even for me.”

I blush furiously, but otherwise stifle whatever protests come to mind—because, frankly, she probably _has_ had to endure listening to me scream that at the top of my lungs all night long. Nicole tends to be way, _way_ too good in bed for me to pay any mind to what I say, or how loud I’m saying it.

In any case, there are more important things I intend to talk to Wynonna about, so getting lost in the weeds of what each of us overhears through the thin walls of the homestead is counterproductive.

“So,” I launch in, with almost zero context or segue. “You remember when I was little, and you used to wake me up to play hide-and-seek?”

Wynonna stiffens such that I know immediately she understands what I’m referring to but will likely try to quip her way out of acknowledging anything.

“Must’ve gotten rid of those memories to make room for more whiskey.”

“Stop it, Wynonna,” I demand. “I know you know what I’m talking about. You don’t have to say anything, but at least let me talk.”

“ _No_ ,” she snaps bitterly, slapping the back of her chair with her free hand before pointing a finger at me. “I know where you’re going with this, I know what you’re trying to do, and I don’t wanna hear it, okay?”

I balk a little at her aggression, but not completely. When I speak, my voice is shaky, diffident, but I need to ask, “You don’t want to hear me thank you?”

“No,” Wynonna breathes, her eyes narrowed and dark. “I don’t.”

She scowls at me a little longer before grumbling, “Don’t you have a girlfriend to get back to?”

I try my best not to let my hurt reach my face, to tell myself she’s just drunk and in pain and taking it out on me (it’s not like I’m any stranger to that), however I must not succeed, because as I move to stand up, she sits up abruptly, putting her hand on my arm to stop me.

“Waverly, I’m sorry,” she says brokenly. “I shouldn’t have—it’s just, what you were about to say…I can’t hear it. Not now. Not with everything that’s been going on, not with everything I’ve been—” She cuts herself off with a muttered profanity, shaking her head and taking a drink. “I’m sorry, is all.”

Choosing not to push—reminding myself that the more I push Wynonna the less like she is to actually tell me, whereas if I leave her to her own devices she eventually comes clean—I rely on this vague, apophatic approach to getting my gratitude off my chest.

“Well, will you at least tell me when you are ready to hear me the thing I want to say, so that I can say it?”

She rolls her eyes so hard I’m afraid they’ll fall out of her head.

“Come on, Waves,” she scoffs, throwing herself back into her chair and propping her feet up. Though her position implies levity, she refuses to meet my eyes, and I know inside, she’s careening into an endless void of self-deprecation. “You really tryin’ to tell me, roles reversed, you wouldn’t have done the same thing?”

I study her as she nurses her liquor, and I know immediately how her hypothetical would have played out. If I were the older sister, if she were the younger one, then yes, I would have done the same thing: I would have tried to protect her at all costs, at all times, from everything and everyone.

The difference is, Wynonna probably wouldn’t have let me, even at age four.

But she doesn’t want that answer. She doesn’t want that answer, even if it’s the only one I have for her, so instead, I opt for one of her patented rhetorical strategies and deflect with a joke.

“I would have come up with a much better excuse than Midnight Hide-and-Seek, is all I know.”

Her lips curl into a simper and she huffs out a weak laugh. “You’re the dumbass who fell for it.”

Then she deflates a little, staring down at where her thumbnail picks at the edge of the label, flexing her jaw before admitting, “It’s the excuse Mama used to tell me and Willa back when we were that age. Except Daddy wasn’t ever after us the way he was always after you.”

Tears well in my eyes, so I knock back a big gulp of whiskey to cover them up, swallowing heavily.

“And I’m still not allowed to say the thing I wanna say to you?”

My big sister shakes her head, chucking wryly. “That lesbian of yours really is turning you into one of those gross, mushy motherfuckers who wanna, like, talk about shit, and work out issues through healthy communication, ’nsteada just binge drinking like a normal person, huh?”

I blush, holding up my mug of booze in feeble dispute.

“Terrible influence,” she continues, tutting melodramatically. “Lucky you got me to even you back out.”

And I can’t quite stifle my grin, because in her own, convoluted, Wynonna way, she’s giving me a chance to express what I’ve been aiming to, even if it’ll have to be coated in several layers of false irony in order to be digestible for her.

“Thank you, Wynonna,” I retort, keeping my tone deceivingly glib so as to stay Wynonna-approved. “I have no idea what I would do without you.”

“Champ Hardy, apparently.”

I snicker a bit, but then break out in uncontrollable giggles as I recall:

“Do you remember when Nicole punched him?”

Wynonna throws her head back in laughter, but manages to pant out, “ _Vividly_.”

We take a few moments to let our mirth dissipate, just drinking our whiskey and staring at the fire. Soon, I feel her eyes on me, and I turn to find her staring at me with an inscrutable expression, which morphs into a pensive shrug when she meets my eyes.

“For what it’s worth, I get why you were willing to do whatever it took to save her,” she comments. Then, after a beat, her face hardens, and she hisses, “But you are _not_ allowed to tell her I said that, got it?”

Grinning, I poke my free hand out from under the blanket and extend it toward her, my pinky finger outstretched. She smiles and wordlessly hooks her own pinky around mine.

“I love you, baby girl.”

“Love you too, Wynonna.”

\----

When Nicole and I wake up the next morning, our position isn’t as blatantly intimate as the previous morning’s, but in a sense, it’s even more so. It’s intimate in the sense that it is our routine—our own unique, quirky little routine that reminds us every morning how lucky we are to have found each other. And as per the routine, Nicole is laid flat on her stomach on her side of the bed, her impeccable body tangled in a single blanket save her left arm, which has snaked underneath my four blankets so it can remain loosely draped over my waist. I lay on my side, facing her, basking in the heavenly feeling of being pinned by a mountain of warm blankets and the arm of the greatest, hottest human to have ever lived.

As I slowly awaken, though my eyes are still squeezed shut, I am naturally drawn to my best baby, and start to scoot closer to her. She must feel it, because she hums contentedly and gradually curls her arm closer around me as I shift, until she finally grows impatient and merely tugs me, bonus blankets and all, as close as she can manage.

“Morning, angel,” she murmurs.

“Mornin’, cuddle buddy,” I yawn, burrowing my head into her shoulder.

“You’re so cute in the mornings,” she observes, and I pop an eye open only to see her openly appraising me with bleary eyes. “You’re cute all the time, but it’s a different kinda cute in the morning. Makes me wish I was good at art, so maybe I could capture it.”

I chuckle, my voice husky with sleep, and comment, “You shoulda seen you last night. You’re the most adorable sleepy person ever.”

“Mm. Whatever you say.”

“I didn’t get to hear about your day,” I realize aloud, adjusting the edges of my blankets so as to snuggle closer to her.

“Not much to hear about. Chrissy basically banned Nedley from doing anything more strenuous than lifting his coffee cup, and he’s not about to piss her off, so Lonnie’s been runnin’ all the calls, which means all the calls have been run like total shit. I had to retrace his steps over the last three days and redo all his incident reports.”

I whimper sympathetically, kissing her arm. “My poor baby.”

“Some drunk threw a rock through Mrs. Becker’s window again, and Lonnie filed a traffic accident report. I had to spend ten minutes redoing the report and over an hour talking down Mrs. Becker.”

“She’s the worst. Once Wynonna stopped in front of her house to tie her shoe, and Mrs. Becker tried to get Nedley to arrest her for trespassing.”

“I believe it,” Nicole snorts. “She saved the rock in a sandwich bag and asked me to run DNA on it.”

Letting loose an evil snicker, I squeeze the hand draped over me. “I assume you didn’t bother trying to explain to her how idiotic that request is?”

“Course not. I’m having Lonnie dust for prints.”

“One could say you’re killing two birds with one stone.”

“Clever girl,” Nicole laughs, turning onto her side so we lay face to face.

For an extended stretch, we just lie there, staring at each other. _Savoring_ the sight of each other. God, my girlfriend is the prettiest thing to ever exist. I swear, there’s never been anything that is more beautiful or loyal or generous or worthy, inside and out, as Nicole Haught. Maybe one day, when the curse is broken and I’m old and retired, sitting in a rocking chair next to her, I’ll write volumes on how perfect she is, but for now, I selfishly want to keep her for myself. I want to imagine I’m the only one who gets to experience her in her full glory.

The way she loves me is…unwarranted, frankly. There’s no reason she should love me as much as I love her, because I can’t even vocalize how much I love her without feeling like my whole world is caving in on me, which is especially upsetting because my whole world is basically Nicole, Wynonna, and then some people I love all the same but for whom I won’t irrationally and thoughtlessly make deals with strange witches.

My thoughts are overwhelming me, as is my love for this woman I’m privileged enough to get to share a bed with, so I lean forward and kiss her. She returns it wholeheartedly for a few seconds, but when her hands don’t drift anywhere scandalous, I know she’s about to pull away.

When she does, I witness in real time the guilt and shame flooding those monumentally brilliant eyes of hers, and it crushes me like a falling skyscraper.

“What’s wrong?”

“I have to tell you something.”

My heart stops, I think, and it must show on my face, because Nicole is sputtering and grabbing at me, as if that will take her words back.

“No! Not like that. Not like that at all. It’s nothing bad, it’s just…fuck, I don’t know how to do this. Yesterday, you told me a thing, right? About your family, your growing-up. A thing that I assume you hadn’t told anyone else?”

I wait for her to continue, but she doesn’t, and I quickly realize she’s waiting for confirmation. My mouth feels dry, cottony.

“You’re right,” I confirm hoarsely. “I’ve never told that to anyone else.”

Nicole gulps. “So, I…I wanna do the same thing. I wanna tell you something I’ve never told anyone else.”

“You don’t have to,” I promise, squeezing her fingers, bringing our joined hands up so I can kiss each of her knuckles as reverently as possible. “I know how hard it is for you to talk about your growing-up, and I get that. It’s hard for me to talk about mine. It’s totally okay. Just know that I want to know, if and when you’re ready to tell me.”

Candidly, I’ve always wanted to know more about Nicole’s upbringing. She largely and deliberately avoids the subject, and as of our half-year of dating, the only things I know about her parents are: (1) she no longer speaks to her parents; (2) her parents are the ones who cut off contact, because they don’t like that she’s a cop; and (3) that she wishes she could go back in time and stop talking to “those negligent, selfish hippies” before they stopped talking to her.

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” she groans, biting her lip. “It’s just…difficult.”

“I know.”

She hesitates, slightly, and then argues, in a timid yet assured voice, “No…you don’t.”

I furrow my eyebrows, meeting her gaze with open curiosity.

“You have Wynonna. You have someone who—”

Nicole cuts herself off, even going so far as to take one of her hands off me just to briefly pinch the bridge of her nose before bringing it back to my shoulder, though softer than before.

“I really want to tell you. I don’t know why it’s so hard.”

“I’ll be here either way,” I promise her. “Maybe it’ll help if you tell me a good story, first. Or at least a better one, a happier one.”

She flashes a small, sad smile, reaching up to pin some of my hair behind my ear. “You’re sweet to me.”

“How could I not be?” I counter, and something odd and unreadable flickers across her face, gone before I have a chance to parse it.

“They, um,” she begins tentatively, clearing her throat. “I remember they used to make up these stories. When I was little, they’d make up these crazy, wild stories about faraway planets where people had seven eyes and no toes, or about flowers who knew quantum physics but couldn’t get us to understand what they’re saying. They’d be long, and intricate, and funny, and fascinating, and—”

She cuts herself off with a nostalgic laugh before her face falls.

“Looking back, they were probably just high.”

Oh God, my poor baby. Even the first happy memory she could think of is tainted. She’s heavily alluded to her parents’ frequent drug use before, but never in so many words, and never as anything but a witty, throwaway comment (usually followed by another snarky joke or two to deflect from the first one about her parents, all done with an expertise that would impress even Wynonna).

I’m starting to get an idea of why Nicole’s so comfortable being the stable one, the strong one, the mature one. I’ve always had my suspicions, but slowly, she’s letting me in, breaking down her walls just enough to allow me to see why she’s content to be the order in the chaos, why she _craves_ to be the order in the chaos.

No wonder she loves me—you can’t really get more chaotic than an Earp.

I table those thoughts for later, though, because this is the part where I have to be _her_ Nicole. I have to be her rock for once; I _get_ to be her rock for once, and I don’t want to screw it up. Just because I can’t say all the words I want to, just because I can’t extemporaneously deliver one of those remarkably profound, romantic speeches that she can, doesn’t mean I can’t be here for her.

From experience, I know that Nicole doesn’t really care about words in these circumstances, anyway. They help, but it’s not the primary gesture she needs.

So instead of stumbling through trying to say something deep or poetical, I swing my top leg over her hips, climbing higher up her body so my face is just above hers, and move my hands to her hair, scratching her scalp in the way that calms her down and makes her make that adorable little cooing sound.

She makes it, and she exhales a breath neither of us knew she was holding, and she squeezes me tight to her before letting her face take refuge in my chest. I tuck her head under my chin.

“Thank you,” I whisper. “I know I have this awful habit of dumping all my crap on you. Making you emotionally support me without returning the favor.”

“Our relationship doesn’t have a balance sheet, Waves,” Nicole huffs, though it’s a little muffled by my boobs. “I support you because I love you and I want to, not out of some transactional expectation.”

“I know,” I sigh. “But I want to support you, too. I just…am not as good at it as you are, I guess. So thank you, for letting me in. It makes me feel…important.”

“You’re more than important,” my hopeless romantic corrects immediately, adamantly, even pulling her head out of my cleavage to underscore the point. “You are… _everything_ , Waverly.”

 _You are too, Nicole_.

The words are stuck in my throat, and I wish to whatever gods may be listening I could get them out, but it doesn’t seem to be working, so I settle for something else.

I kiss her, long and deep and passionate, because even if my mouth can’t make words properly, maybe I can still use it this way, and I can convince her. Convince her that I love her, cherish her, _require_ her. I translate every bit of affection and trust and admiration and pride I have for her into that kiss; I bury myself in that kiss, approach it with the enthusiasm I approached keeping her from dying, and if it weren’t for my stupid lungs, I might never have pulled away.

She’s breathless and dazed, whereas I’m breathless and resolute, searching her eyes, looking for any clue, one way or another, if she understands me, if she believes me.

It takes a second for her to regain her composure, but when she catches her breath and seems to rejoin the present world, a smile gradually stretches across her face.

And holy heck, it’s the most magnificent, dazzling smile anybody has ever smiled. The kind of smile that could change the world, that could start and end wars, that could make or break mankind.

And she’s smiling it at _me_ , and her dimples are so deep I could swim in them and I wish I could, I wish I could get as close to her as physically possible, if only so I could then find a way to get closer than that.

“Wow,” she husks, appraising me with something almost resembling deference, and it fills me with a warmth I’ve never known before.

“For what it’s worth,” I whisper, refusing to tear my eyes away from hers. “I think anyone who knows you, and yet still chooses not to be in your life, is a total fucking moron.”

Her eyes widen briefly, and then she releases a jovial, incredulous laugh, and it might be the cutest sound I’ve ever heard.

“I think that’s only, like, the third time I’ve heard you say ‘fuck’ when we’re not _actively_ fucking.”

Blushing only slightly, I maintain, “I save it for special occasions.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” she offers, settling her head down on the pillow, training her eyes more toward my neck than my face. “They don’t really know me. They never really knew me, never wanted to. They were always away, gone for weeks at a time. By the time I was six or seven, they stopped taking me with them. By the time I was nine or ten, they stopped even telling me when they were leaving or where they were going or when they’d be back. Usually they’d remember to leave food or money for me, but…not always. Especially once I got older and better at fending for myself. They didn’t help me with my homework or come to my basketball games or give a shit about what interested me. Even when they were around, they were usually too high to function as adequate parents. One time, when I was twelve, they just…brought a dog home. Said they found him in the park and thought I’d want him.”

I furrow my eyebrows, afraid to interrupt her diatribe, since she’s so uncensored, in a way she so rarely lets others see, that I wonder if she’s even fully aware that she’s saying all the things she’s saying. However, she trails off for just long enough that I feel safe interjecting with a concise remark without completely shutting her down.

“You don’t like dogs.”

“Exactly!” she exclaims, scoffing and turning over onto her back. Thankfully, though her grip tragically loosens, she keeps her arms wrapped around me as best she can from this new position, so I adjust to accommodate. She relaxes a little when she feels me press back up against her, but I still detect her melancholy, her anger, her hurt.

“They think they’re so open-minded—they’re just as small-minded as any hick I’ve ever arrested on the job, with different ideals. They can’t imagine a cop could ever be good, or compassionate, or helpful. All they see me as is a cog in an evil machine. Meanwhile, they’re nothing but junkie losers who talk a lot of theory about changing the world and helping people, but never actually do anything about it. Instead they turn around and resent me because it took me more than twenty minutes to figure out how to raise myself.”

I suck in a ragged, strangled breath, half-draping myself over this miracle of a woman so I can paint kisses across her clenched jaw, but she continues to lie rigid and unreactive beneath my affections.

“It’s fine,” Nicole insists hollowly. “It’s fine. They were always just looking for an excuse, so I gave them one. They never actually wanted me; they hated me from the day I was born. Since before then, probably. I just gave them an excuse to stop pretending, and it was the greatest gift I ever gave either of us.”

My sense of helplessness is debilitating, and part of me wants to track her parents down and give them a piece of my mind—or maybe a piece of my shotgun. In fact, it disturbs me, a little, the myriad urges that bubble up to inflict _pain_ upon these people, to correct the abuse they caused my noble, loyal, flawless girlfriend through violence and vitriol.

I hate them. I hate the people who did this to my love. I _hate_ them, and that scares me to no end, because I don’t hate very easily. Even the part of my mind trying to come up with any and every reason to offer them clemency—the part which is normally the loudest, if not the only, voice I hear—is drowned out by my visceral hatred for the people who baselessly rejected this exquisite human being, who caused her a lifetime of pain.

But I swallow those urges, I try to quell the hatred, because for better or worse, those people brought me my Nicole. They made my Nicole the person she is, and that person is the light of my life, and the light of my life would never want me reduced to the kind of person who would act on these terrifying thoughts flooding my head.

So I won’t.

(Still, sometimes it’s nice to fantasize. Cathartic, even.)

Instead, I grasp at straws, searching for any words that can come close to properly describing my astounding girlfriend.

I take her head in my hands like it’s the crown jewels, because to me it’s even more valuable and precious, _she_ is even more valuable and precious, and I tell her, “You are the strongest, bravest, most capable person in the whole wide world, and I really wish I could talk as good as you so I could do you justice. In my defense, it’s really hard for me to think straight when you’re around, because I’m so captivated and impressed by you.”

In one sudden yet fluid movement, Nicole tugs me fully on top of her, clearly reveling in the change, as if she were no longer satisfied with gravity alone and needed to feel my entire weight to ground her, to convince herself she wouldn’t float away. I understand implicitly, and I oblige her, rucking up both our sleep shirts so we can enjoy more skin contact.

Resting my chin on her chest, I gaze up at her, knowing I probably look as pathetically smitten as I feel but finding myself unable to care. She tilts her head down, regarding me with a kind of passion and volition that could stop the sun from shining, if she wanted it to.

“If you were to ask me to quit my job, give up being a cop, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Right now, no questions asked, I’d do it.”

That rattles me.

Not because I don’t want to hear it, but because I don’t want to believe it. It simply isn’t in line with my interpretation of reality, so I find it difficult, if not impossible, to accept, and my brain starts to malfunction, spitting out a hundred different nonsensical replies before I finally focus enough to find one that fits, and even that isn’t quite right, it isn’t quite the issue I wish to raise, but it’s close enough without making me sound like a total, self-loathing martyr, and besides, I’m not exactly of cogent mind at the moment.

“I would never ask you to do that, Nicole. _Never_.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” she answers without reservation or delay, an enchanting trace of a smile adorning her perfect face. “That’s part of why I’d do it.”

Sputtering, I shake my head, propping myself up on my forearms so as to better study her, better read her. I want to ask her a million follow-up questions, and being the seasoned researcher I am, I find it disheartening that I can’t seem to catalogue them, to narrow them down, to prioritize them, but I need to ask something, otherwise I’ll collapse in on myself like a dying star, so I settle for the closest substitute for an overarching summary I can manage in my current state.

“Why?”

Nicole, to her eternal credit, doesn’t falter. She combs her fingers through my hair and smiles up at me, appearing almost exuberant behind her surface-level apprehension. There’s an involuntary smile she can’t quite stifle, a brilliant and pervasive joy in her eyes she can’t quite conceal.

“I don’t want to scare you.”

“Scare me.”

I evoke the dare without hesitation, without skipping a beat, because I’m intoxicated by her, by this infectious expression on her face, so intoxicated that I need to know the source so I can drink from it until it inevitably kills me.

She bites her lip, inhales like it’s the last oxygen she might ever get, and then releases it with an uneasy chuckle, like she can’t believe she’s actually about to say it out loud.

“I think we might be soulmates.”

There’s no controlling the grin that splashes onto my face; it’s like a semi-truck with no brakes careening down a hill.

“Is this because of the Wynonna-less world we barely remember?”

She doesn’t seem deterred by my lighthearted follow-up; if anything, her beam gets a several megawatts brighter.

“I barely remember the details, that’s true. But I remember, clear as day, being just as in love with you in that crazy alternate universe as I am in this one. Even though I barely knew you, I loved you, because you are… _everything_ to me.”

Settling myself back down into the crook of her neck, I hum, closing my eyes and repeating the word slowly, deliberately, so as to try it on for size: “ _Soulmates_.”

Nicole tenses beneath me. “I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“You didn’t,” I near-giggle, patting around for her hand so I can twine our fingers together. “I’m just…practicing.”

“Practicing?” my girl reiterates, and I can hear the amused smirk in her voice.

“Yes. _Practicing_. Seeing how the word feels in my mouth, you know?”

“Oh yeah?” she laughs endearingly. “So how’s it feel?”

I sigh in contentment, inhaling deeply to bask in the smell of vanilla dip donuts and Nicole Rayleigh Haught.

“It feels perfect,” I announce. “Just like you.”


End file.
